infant robot by a lotus pond

‘Let me ask you a question.’ I paused for his silent acceptance before I continued, ‘If I am not the future being you mentioned, then I really don’t know what you’re talking about and where the beads are. What if you’re wrong about me?’

‘Then how can I ever find the beads? Without them my clay doll wouldn’t have come alive.’

‘Alive? The beads are so important?’ I asked, ‘but aren’t they just beads?’

‘They are great beads, seeds...’

‘Seeds?’ Then I realized I mistook the sound.

There was a small lotus pond in the far corner of the courtyard. I caught sight of an erect stem. I always wondered how could the flower still flourish in the night.

Lotus seeds. Suddenly I was inspired. An infant robot coming from the future, settling in a... a temple, waiting for something to happen or someone to come, and of course, with the seeds being the key to its survival, its being, its trans-temporal evolution... I was excited.

Lu studied me. 'Sir, you look different.'

I smiled, with the joy of working through the plot of my would-be fiction. I might just include the sixth mascot idea. But then I realized it was Lu’s idea, or that of the future being he mentioned. I couldn’t do plagiarism.

‘Are you now the secret being that visited me?’ Lu asked in a low voice.

‘...Maybe.’

consequence of being the future me

Lu seemed happy that I did not argued with him. ‘Can you show me some hints to find the beads?’

‘I don’t know...’ Then I was aware that I was expected to be the present form of the future being who visited Lu the other day.

He looked at me, trying to see if I was hiding something from him. Would he consider this a test by the future being? As time dragged by, Lu grew suspicious and a bit impatient.

‘But you’re a writer,’ He said.

‘A writer doesn’t necessarily know everything.’

‘The things a writer writes about always come true.’

‘Who said that, a writer?’

‘You!’ Lu was angered.

‘No...’ I again became conscious of my being the future being that visited Lu. I didn’t know whether this will be true but now I had to bear the consequence, if not responsibility.

There was a phase of silence.

rural miners make robot

I was speechless.

‘Aside mine, there’re other families.’

‘Who are they?’

‘Others living in the same mountain. You see, we run a mine of our own.’

My eyes grew wide. ‘Do you have someone who’ve learned mining science?’

‘No.’ Lu again shook his head. ‘Just dig. No need to learn mining.’ And before I answered, he added, ‘Don’t mind the mine.’

I should have known he was just one of the rural homemade miners. Family business. And instead of mining they now came to making robots. Chinese people couldn’t be that naive. Populism. It may hurt.

‘Yeah, maybe we are affected by past history, that we believe we can make steel from ore just by burning a big fire.’ Lu showed his wit of reflection.

‘Do you think it’s plausible?’

‘Possible?’ He nodded, ‘Only if you have faith.’

I tried to disagree but, just by looking at his face, I knew I could hurt this fellow by saying so. After all, he now took me as the future being that visited him. Then I resisted my own reaction.

native homemade robot

‘Quake has something to do with anything. We’re living on the crust. The underworld rules us all.’

‘Are you part of the underworld?’ I asked.

Lu was silent. His expression prompted me into thinking he was one of them.

We kept the silence for such a duration that when I tried to resume the dialogue, he quickly broke in, ‘I am on a journey to find the beads.’

‘Who make the robot then?’ I asked.

‘I have a family. They’re doing it.’

‘They know how to do it?’

‘Again, it’s not rocket science.’ Lu was cooled down a bit. ‘It’s native homemade robotics. ’

future me telling other people to find me?

‘Listen, I am a writer.’ I said. ‘I have ideas of someone coming back from the future, that’s not totally my plot. To tell the truth, what you’re saying about an infant robot is somewhat similar to an idea I have in mind these days, though I haven’t designed it to be the sixth mascot of this year’s Olympic Games.’

While I was intending to continue, Lu said quickly, ‘It’s okay. Maybe you should know, the being once said you’re closely related to it. Therefore I came for you...’

‘He knows me?’

Lu's eyes were wide open, and spoke in a made-believed tone, ‘Maybe it’s the future you.’

‘He looks like me?’

‘Not really. I can’t really figure out his face.’

‘What else did he tell you?’ I tried to convince him, ‘I mean, if I were him, then the queer logic of time travel allows me to ask about myself, right? ’

Lu smiled, ‘It makes sense. He told me to find some beads.’

‘Beads? Hand-made?’

‘Mmm, I don’ t know because I haven’t found them. They should be somewhere in the faults torn open by the quake.’

‘So the quake had something to do with it.’ I said.

Gao Zeng or Gt or the being?

‘They are everywhere.’

I shook my head, ‘You see, it has to be everyone being a secret agent in order to make them everywhere. Not everyone is interested in spying on others.’

‘There was a time when most of the people spy on others, even within the family.’

I stared at him, ‘You have that experience?’

‘No. But my ancestors did.’ Lu looked around, ‘I guess you’re the man.’

This again frustrated me. ‘I am? Who is me then.’

‘Gao Zeng, alias Gt, the one who wrote, or is still writing about the lotus robot.’

Curious as I am, I asked cautiously, ‘Where do you know about my book, from the website or the blog?’

Lu’s answer stunned me, ‘From someone who will come back to me from the future, and he had.’ He paused, trying to make me believe, ‘I was visited by this being, I don’t know whether it’s a he or she, and then I was told about the possibility of an infant robot.’

‘Wait,’ I waved him to stop, ‘this is my plot. How come you know it?’

Lu seemed angered, 'I just told you about the sixth mascot and you said that's your plot...'

Then it suddenly dawned to him, and he tried to verify something, 'you know that being?'

I tried to figure out the causal relationship before answering.

That’s part of my conversation with this man Lu.

The reason I cited them is because I want to tell the world about this strange incident. It is about a mascot prepared for this year’s Olympic Games by a rural craftsman. It is intended as a surprise, a robot made in China, among the first of its kind.

Chinese had had the mechanical know-how to drive wooden ox and horse long before the West did the alike. Those were Lu’s words.

‘I started this because I like robotics. It can be traced far back into more than a millennium ago. Westerners don’t know it because they’re so absorbed in themselves. Japanese robotics leads the world. It represents a major trend in the science. And remember, Japanese culture originates from China, the old Cathay. So why should anyone be surprised if a Chinese like me makes an archetype of the robot mascot?’

Before I could say anything, Lu whispered, ‘The earthquake on 12 May let me have a little more time, as the secret agents seemed absent these days.’

‘Secret agents?’ I asked.